[New Era of Hospitality] We now need to communicate in a language that "AI robots" can understand.

The era when "omotenashi" (hospitality) only referred to serving customers in person is over.

To help customers find their fated item that they haven't yet seen, it is essential to honestly, carefully, and precisely describe data without any ambiguity to the "robots" of search engines and AI, which are the pathways customers take. This is the ultimate "omotenashi" in the digital age.

Is it true that the declining birthrate and aging population lead to a bad economy?

Walking through the sales floors of domestic apparel chain stores, one feels a silence that belies the former vibrancy. When examining many domestic securities reports, similar reasons are listed:

"Shrinking domestic market due to the declining birthrate and aging population, and stagnation of personal consumption."

At first glance, this seems like a macroeconomic truism that everyone would agree with. However, is this truly the "fundamental reason why clothes aren't selling"?

"Declining birthrate and aging population" – an excuse to avoid facing the core issue

The declining birthrate and aging population is an easy excuse that no one refutes. Let's look at the world.

Emerging brands such as POPMART, SKIMS, GYMSHARK, LULULEMON, and Alo Yoga, which primarily operate on the internet and social media, have achieved astonishing growth, scaling to 100 billion yen in sales in just five years.

One might argue, "That's because the U.S. population is growing." However, developed countries are all experiencing similar waves of aging, and the U.S. population growth rate is only about +2% annually. Even if the Japanese market is shrinking by -1% annually, the structural difference between Japan and the U.S. should theoretically be "3%."

However, the actual difference in sales growth rates between traditional mass merchandisers and emerging digital brands is far from 3%. There is an overwhelming gap of over 30%.

This fact suggests that the phrase "clothes don't sell because of the declining birthrate and aging population" is an excuse to avoid acknowledging changes in the times.

The rules of the "Turing machine" that govern modern times

Why is there such a significant difference? The reason is that the world we live in has shifted to "Turing machine" communication.

What is a Turing machine?

A concept of a computational machine proposed by Alan Turing of England in 1936, which processes all human thoughts by replacing them with two symbols, "0" and "1." It forms the foundation of modern computers, the internet, and all e-commerce sites.

As users of convenient smartphones, we often forget that this world is only established by "the exact and certain correspondence of 0s and 1s."

The fundamental reason why domestic apparel chain stores are experiencing declining revenues and profits is that they continue to pretend not to notice this change. Humans are now facing a new reality where they can only efficiently learn about products that robots (search engines and AI) can understand.

Humans can only find clothes that robots understand

When humans search for clothes online, they use keywords like "white, T-shirt, L."

However, Google Shopping's AI does not intuitively recognize the Japanese character "白" (shiro, white) as is.

白 ➔ white ➔ binary byte (sequence of 0s and 1s)

Only after such a conversion does the machine recognize it as "white."

Before considering whether a product is good or bad, it is essential to describe it in a way that robots can understand. This is the "preliminary ritual (protocol)" for delivering information to humans.

Careful "symbolic description" is modern customer service

Modern search is built upon a meticulous accumulation of answers to user queries.

Unless the following linguistic topology (connections of language) that constitutes a product is defined word for word in binary, it won't even be seen by users:

• Materials, sizes, colors
• Care instructions, country of origin, price
• Shipping, return/exchange policy
• Product name, category, taxonomy (classification)

For example, if a page simply states "Country of origin: Japan" in Japanese, a human who lands on it can read it. However, for the computer, which is the main agent bringing humans to the page, if you don't organize it with country_of_origin: JP in the backend code (schema), the search engine cannot bring "people looking for Japanese-made items."

In the era when there were many small individual shops, we would stand at the storefront, write POP displays, and experiment with our sales pitch to serve customers. Today, the stage for that customer service has simply shifted to "warehouses" and "data centers."

No matter how wonderful the inventory in a warehouse, if it's not listed on an e-commerce store and the data is not accurately displayed as "stock quantity: 1," that product is as good as non-existent in the world.

In the AI era, sites that also offer hospitality to robots will be chosen

Today, internet users' shopping habits have evolved further. We are in an era where people consult generative AI like ChatGPT and Gemini for personal advice, asking things like, "Find me comfortable innerwear that suits me."

However, these AIs do not painstakingly search every product on the internet.

AI will only look for information on "shopping sites that have organized data, where answers to questions can be easily found, and which offer hospitality to robots." Sites with messy backend data won't even get a chance to appear in AI's answer choices.

The future of "omotenashi" that Lucien Inner aims for

The era when "omotenashi" (hospitality) only referred to serving customers in person is over.

To help customers find their fated item that they haven't yet seen, it is essential to honestly, carefully, and precisely describe data without any ambiguity to the "robots" of search engines and AI, which are the pathways customers take. This is the ultimate "omotenashi" in the digital age.

If we have 3,000 products, no matter how vast, we painstakingly consider every expression for each of the 3,000 pages, one by one, to ensure they are understood by robots and instantly conveyed intuitively, all for that single moment when a customer feels comfortable. This is a challenging endeavor, but it is a path that can only be opened through persistent trial and error. To be a brand that reaches both humans and robots directly, Lucien Inner is also addressing the invisible backend data.

This is not an easy task, but it is a path that can only be opened by persistently and patiently continuing to explore.

To be a brand that reaches both humans and robots directly, Lucien Inner is also addressing the invisible backend data.